Incendiary Circumstances Read Online Free Page B

was left but a deep crust of wreckage.
    "And your mother and sister?" the Director had asked.
    "Baba, they just disappeared..." And now for the first time the boy began to cry, and the Director's heart broke, for he knew his son was crying because he thought he would be scolded and blamed for what had happened.
    "I was strict with him, sir," the Director told me, his voice trailing off. "I am a strict man—that is my nature. But I must say he is a brave boy, a very brave boy."
    Having spent thirteen years on the island, the Director was well acquainted with the local administration and the officers on the air base. Through their intervention he was able to get on a flight the very next day. He spent the day searching through the rubble; he found many possessions, but no trace of his daughter or his wife. He returned to Port Blair with his son the same evening, and the two of them moved in with some friends. Every day since then
he'd been trying to go back, to find out what had become of his wife and daughter, but the flights had been closed—until this one.
    "Tell me," he said, his voice becoming uncharacteristically soft. "What do you think—is there any hope?"
    It took me a moment to collect my wits. "Of course there is hope," I said. "There is always hope. They could have been swept ashore on another part of the island."
    He nodded. "We will see. I hope I will find out today, in Malacca."
    With some hesitation I asked if it would be all right if I came with him. He answered with a prompt nod. "You can come."
    I had the impression that he had been dreading the lonely search that lay ahead and would be glad of some company. "All right then," I said. "I will."
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    At the airfield in Car Nicobar, the Director arranged a ride for us on a yellow construction truck that had been set to the task of distributing relief supplies. The truck went bouncing down the runway before turning off into a narrow road that led into a forest. Once the airstrip was behind us, it was as though we had been transported to some long-ago land, unspoiled and untouched. The road wound through a dense tropical jungle, dotted at intervals with groves of slender areca palms and huts mounted on stilts. Some of these had metamorphosed into makeshift camps, sprouting awnings of plastic and tarpaulin. It was clear that the island's interior was sparsely inhabited, with the population being concentrated along the seafront.
    Earlier, while the plane was making its descent, I had had a panoramic, if blurred, view of the island in the crisp morning sunlight. No more than a few miles across, it was flat and low, and its interior was covered by a dense canopy of greenery. A turquoise halo surrounded its shores, where a fringe of sand had once formed an almost continuous length of beach; this was now still mainly underwater. I saw to my surprise that many coconut palms were still standing, even on the edge of the water. Relatively few
palms had been flattened; most remained upright and in full possession of their greenery. As for the forest, the canopy seemed almost undisturbed. All trace of habitation, in contrast, had been obliterated. The foundations of many buildings could be clearly seen on the ground, but of the structures they had once supported, nothing remained.
    It was evident from above that the tsunami had been peculiarly selective in the manner of its destruction. Had the island been hit by a major cyclone, not a frond would have survived on the coconut palms and the forest canopy would have been denuded. Most human dwellings, on the other hand, would have retained their walls, even if they lost their roofs. Not so in this instance. The villages along the shore were not merely damaged; they were erased. It was as if the island had been hit by a weapon devised to cause the maximum possible damage to life and property while leaving nature largely unharmed.
    We came to an intersection that was flanked by low whitewashed buildings. This was